Bride Wars ~ Film Review

Director: Gary Winick
Screenwriters: Greg DePaul, Casey Wilson, June Diane Raphael
Production Company: Firm Films, New Regency Pictures, Regency Enterprises, Sunrise Entertainment (II)
Studio: Fox 2000 Pictures (USA)
Starring: Ann Hathaway, Kate Hudson, Bryan Greenberg, Steve Howey, Chris Pratt, Kristen Johnston, Candice Bergen, Kelly Coffield

Warning: In my movie reviews I discuss plot pretty openly here, so be warned if you haven’t seen the film yet.

Emma (played by Anne Hathaway) and Liv (played by Kate Hudson) have been best friends since they were children, but that friendship is sorely tested when they both wind up with the same and only wedding date available at their dream ceremony location: New York City's Plaza Hotel. Neither will back down and give the other their special day all to themselves. May the best Bridezilla win.

Most of the laughs of this film are about how each gal tries to sabotage the other gal’s wedding. The film’s underlying message is that you are very lucky indeed if you happen to have a friend to count on, who knows you best, better than even the person you pledge your life to, and this comes across nicely. That’s what I took from it. And I think the message is a smart choice and it elevates this romantic comedy just a bit above the others out there, for that reason.

Yes there is a bit of the ‘do they love each other’, ‘are they right for each other’ bits between Liv and Emma and their men, but the screenwriter picks the Emma/Liv friendship as the main focus here and sticks with it. That’s refreshing in a Rom-Com, and that makes this film a winner for me.

You have to like both of these girls in order to root for the schemes they pull on each other and why they're doing it or none of this part of the plot works. Thankfully, both despite their quirks and their competitiveness are likeable due to nice attention paid to each character’s development. Well done performances by Hathaway and Hudson too (who also produces on this project).The critics and the marketing folks behind this film liken Liv and Emma to Bridezillas, but if you’ve ever seen that Oxygen network show Emma and Liv have nothing on the attitudes of those women. Thank you screenwriters.

Also fun is Emma’s lazy and manipulative school teacher colleague “Deb” played by the always funny Kristen Johnston, (“3rd Rock from the Sun”; “Music and Lyrics”). Here is an actress I would like to see step into her own romantic comedy as a ‘lead.’ She’s already a scene stealer as a supporting actress in Rom-Coms. I’d like to see what she could do in a story of her own.

I was also interested in Emma’s friendship with Liv’s brother Nate (played by Bryan Greenberg), which we get all of two scenes with. We do get an answer to that chemistry between them, but I would have liked even more to have seen that story unfold. But that’s another movie.

Also, an easy fix for the ‘same day’ dilemma Liv and Emma faced, I felt could have been solved with an a.m. and p.m. wedding. But that’s me, trying to apply that real life logic.

And yes, I was looking for soup to critique about in this movie, but apparently women only eat salads, and drink in Rom-coms.

Still, a good film. If you didn’t catch it in theaters, it’s out on DVD in April. Check it out.

Confessions of a Shopaholic ~ Film Review

Directed by: PJ Hogan

Screenwriters: Tracy Jackson, Tim Firth, Kayla Alpert
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer films
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture
Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Kristin Scott Thomas,

John Goodman, Joan Cusack, Leslie Pope.

Warning: In my movie reviews I discuss plot pretty openly here, so be warned if you haven’t seen the film yet.

I didn’t read the popular book series by writer Sophie Kinsella, but I have no doubt that there are at least a few necessary “story chunks,” as I like to call them, missing from this movie, that would have helped flesh out the characters and the plot and subplots here.

We meet Rebecca (played by Isla Fisher), our Shopaholic who says the world gets better each time she shops. Personally, I think my world would get much better if each time I ate chocolate I never gained an ounce. But, that’s me. We all have our dreams though. I get it Rebecca.

When we meet Rebecca she is in debt up to her eyeballs but continues to shop endlessly even after the company she works for folds and she is now flat broke. Through lies and sheer dumb luck she winds up with a new writing gig, this time for a finance magazine. Yep, that is the big joke of the movie. A gal hiding big debt of her own lies her way into writing financial advice from a plain speaking perspective she knows.

Her column comparing making one’s financial investment to ‘the art of shoe buying’ immediately resonates with the magazine’s readers and before she knows it Rebecca is a star employee meeting with the big wigs. She is also simultaneously developing an overnight romance with her handsome editor Luke (played by Hugh Dancy) and secretly trying to out run an overly determined debt collector. So far much of Becca's mess is truly a fairytale we women should all get a crack at. Unfortunately, very little of Becca's problems really endears us to her. She is the cause of all of her problems and yet continues to succeed without a care, even to the friend who tries to help her.

In paging through the book that this movie is based on awhile back, I seem to remember that some of Rebecca’s more creative “excuse letters’ to the debt collector are funny yet none of them make it into this movie. I think that right there is a missed opportunity to soften and perhaps counter the selfish tone of Becca a bit. Instead the screenwriters go with Rebecca’s klutziness and her moments of shopping obsession, which isn’t really enough here despite Fisher’s best comedic efforts.

The overnight romance between Rebecca and Luke (played by Hugh Dancy) is perfunctory at best despite the likeability of both Hugh Dancy and Isla Fisher. For me, a romance can’t work without chemistry. And pretty strong chemistry if you are going to advance the romance this quickly. Also, the audience at some point has to be invested enough that you hope that they’ll get together. I felt none of that here, though I admit I wished that I had. Instead, I kept wondering what Luke sees in Rebecca and why they should get together at all.

Also, the conflicts aren't hard enough to overcome. Becca hiding her debt from Luke as well as her true goal to write for the fashion magazine owned by the same parent company as Luke's magazine isn't that hard to overcome. It's a conversation. Not a life changer.

Several good actors, John Goodman, Joan Cusack (who should get an award for the number of throwaway supporting roles in Rom-Coms she does), Kristen Scott Thomas, Julie Hagerty, and Leslie Pope as the perpetual pretty girl who I know can do more, also gets a few lines but that is about it. Another wasted opportunity.

There is also a subplot with Rebecca and her engaged roommate involving a little test of their friendship, which I can say definitively “Bride Wars” did a better job of.

Despite my criticisms, I don’t think this is in any way an awful film. It’s just not funny enough, or endearing enough of a film.

This film has some good elements here with both the plot idea and certainly the actors, but chances for the bigger laughs aren’t taken.

So how would I fix it? Hmm, good question. I’ll probably need to read the book to figure out what else was left out of the screenplay before I offer any ideas.

In the meantime, if you’re a fan of the book or a fan of the actors, I’d recommend renting it when it comes out on DVD rather than resorting to paying the higher theater admission price just for the chance to see it on the big screen.